NEWSWORTHY - Brief Article

Sales of General Motors cars in Russia collapsed in the first six months of 1999, with GM selling just 242 cars compared to 2,546 a year earlier. Nearly half of the vehicles were Chevrolet Blazers assembled locally at its Yelabuga Yelaz JV. GM blames instability in the ruble for the decline.

Tower Automotive signed a letter of intent to acquire a 49% interest in Seojin Industrial Company, which is a major supplier of vehicle frames to the Korean market. Seojin supplies to Hyundai, Asia Motors and Kia through five facilities. The purchase is a continuation of Tower's planned expansion in Asia.

Toyota and Volkswagen are jointly investigating standardized auto parts as a way of cutting costs. Toyota President Fujio Cho says the idea is interesting, but both automakers have a preference for their own technologies. Talks are continuing to try to find common ground on commodity parts.

Sales of imported cars in Japan have started to rise, with June sales year-to-year growing 15.8%. Sales of German cars rose 24%, U.S. cars climbed 18.1%, British vehicles fell 31.5% and French cars rose 2.2%. Mercedes-Benz is the most popular foreign brand with 20.9% share, VW has 15.0% and BMW 14.5%.

Toyota says it will meet its goal of being the first automaker to market fuel cell powered vehicles. President Hiroshi Okuda says his company will sell the vehicles by 2003, a year ahead of rival DaimlerChrysler. Toyota is working on both a stored hydrogen and on-board reformer version of the car.

Over the strong objections of the German auto industry, the EU passed a decision forcing automakers to recycle at least 80% of the weight of materials in automobiles at no extra cost to owners. Any vehicles sold after January 1, 2001, is covered by the law, which goes into effect in 2006.

Supplier giants Denso and Bosch are discussing future tie-ups beyond Bosch's current 5.3% equity stake in Denso and their fuel pump JV in the U.S. In an interview with Reuters, Denso President Hiromu Okabe said additional tie-ups are possible, but a broad alliance between the two is not being considered.

Nissan implemented a new parts procurement systems in Japan in order to better match components and models. The old system focused strictly on economies of scale but resulted in expensive parts on budget models. The new system uses a matrix to match parts to vehicles.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Cahners Publishing Company
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group